If Wichita Falls wants to get rid of graffiti, the Texas Legislature now says it’s going to have to foot the bill unless property owners volunteer to pay for removal.
In December, city leaders approved an ordinance making it illegal for property owners to leave graffiti on homes, buildings or fences. Once owners were notified by Code Enforcement, they had 15 days to remove or cover the markings or give the city permission to obscure the vandalism for a $50 fee.
Beginning Sept. 1, the legislature will assign such costs to city coffers across the state.
“We’ll need to revisit our ordinance and make changes to be in compliance, but ultimately, the cost will go to the community,” said City Manager Darron Leiker. “Property owners can choose to paint over graffiti themselves, but with the city offering to pay 100 percent of the cost, why wouldn’t they take the city up on it?”
During the fiscal year to date, Leiker says Wichita Falls has already spent $37,000 on graffiti abatement; reports come in to Code Enforcement every week.
Different areas of the city have been plagued by gang “tags” spray painted to identify turf or leave messages. Law enforcement officials encourage quick removal of markings, but acknowledge it can take several over-paintings before taggers give up a location.
So far, Leiker said, no one in Wichita Falls has resisted graffiti removal. He mentioned a case in Arlington where officials found themselves dealing with a property owner who refused to remove racially offensive markings.
“If property owners refuse to have graffiti removed, the new law gives cities the authority to go onto property and take care of the situation,” Leiker explained. “Cities can then recover the cost through liens.”
Likening graffiti to a broken window in an old house that only encourages more broken windows, Leiker said without abatement, graffiti only proliferates.
Currently state lawmakers are considering a variety of measures to make penalties tougher on taggers. An amendment to the Texas penal code proposed by Rep. Trey Fischer of San Antonio, a city that spends millions each year on graffiti abatement, includes punishments such as mandatory drivers license suspensions, restitution to property owners and for third convictions, state jail time.
“It’s difficult to catch folks who are out there in the middle of the night with a spray can,” said Leiker. “But we do have cameras now that can be set up in locations that have been hit repeatedly, so our chances are improving.”
The city attorney’s office will present a report on state mandated changes to local graffiti ordinances at an August council meeting.
Via:www.timesrecordnews.com
According to the Telegraph, Jeremy Kite, Dartford Council leader calls this experiment a success. “People told us they feel safer and they are enjoying the music.” Subways in Blackburn and Burney have also experienced a reduction of graffitti and youth gatherings.
A dozen surveillance cameras have been installed inside a San Fernando Valley tunnel hard-hit by graffiti vandalism.
There’s an ambitious new graffiti writer in town. The first time I saw one of the big, hand-lettered READ signs that have popped up on boarded storefronts around New Orleans over the past few weeks, I thought it was a sort of public service announcement. I imagined that a neighborhood literacy activist was advising the world to hit the books, or something like that. 
To Mr. READ’s credit, most (though not all) of the tags I’ve seen have been applied to the plywood protecting unoccupied storefronts, not to the stores themselves. The big, black-and-white tags are a bit brutal, to be sure. They certainly don’t have the lilting poetry of the Banksy graffiti that wowed the Crescent City almost a year ago. But they have a purposeful punch that places them above the usual aerosol scribbles.I recently met a Brooklyn street artist named Gaia, who knows way more than I do about the national scene. Gaia said that though he doesn’t know Mr. READ (aka Read More Books or The Booker), he believes that the ambitious tagger has hit San Francisco, Cleveland and New York, as well as New Orleans.
As an art critic, I’ve always been ambivalent about reviewing graffiti. On one hand, most graffiti remains more antisocial that artistic. On the other, graffiti is very fashionable these days, and, let’s face it, way more people see it than ever cross the threshold of an art gallery or museum. Even in museums, graffiti is making a splash. I’m told that the original version of street art star Shepard Fairey’s ubiquitous Obama election poster titled “Hope” is the most popular attraction at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. Fairey, who is known to paste posters in public places without permission, recently was fined $2,000 for vandalism in Boston. I’m sure he can afford the price of street cred; I recently saw hand-painted original posters by Fairey for sale at a Washington gallery for $10,000 to $25,000 each. And the two years’ probation he received might be welcome. At age 39, he doesn’t need to be out running the streets anyway.